But he was deadly serious about the importance of that win over Kilkenny to a team gaining confidence all the time. The Meath-based secondary school teacher said: “It was very significant, it gave us massive belief that we could compete with the top teams. We beat them in the league, beat them in the Leinster semi-final.

“The atmosphere that night for the Championship game was unbelievable, though probably no different to last ­weekend against Cork. Wexford supporters will follow in big numbers.”

O’Keeffe has shown his versatility by playing in defence, midfield and attack in Fitzgerald’s relatively short time in charge so far. He picked up Waterford’s 2017 All-Star midfielder Jamie Barron in this year’s league opener.

An All-Star nominee himself last year, O’Keeffe admitted: “I enjoy trying to put myself up against the top players — and Jamie Barron is one of the top players in the country. It’s a challenge you relish.”

The St Anne’s clubman, 26, added that Fitzgerald, who led his native county to the All-Ireland title in 2013, has got the best out of the Wexford players.

He added: “I would have said before he came in that I thought the players were always there. It was just about tweaking certain things. It maybe took Davy to say, ‘Diarmuid, you need to go away and focus on X, Y or Z’, or say it to Lee Chin or Matthew O’Hanlon. It was just focusing on specific areas and it took Davy to do that.”